Barely missed a second bear!

For the second time this season I had to brake hard to miss a bear crossing the road against the light. This one chose to cross an unlighted area on route 97 in downtown Hancock just three houses up the street from the Rite Aide Pharmacy. You never know. The entire system was hit by thunderstorms Friday night and was high and muddy Saturday morning. With tricos out of the picture, I waited until three o'clock to venture out. Surprisingly, with almost no place else fishable, the upper WB wasn't crowded. With the warmer water temps from the rain, however, the sulfur hatch had started early and was for the most part over. I decided to stick around and stand in the cold water to beat the heat which again was well into the nineties. Not having fished the river for almost three weeks I didn't have a clue what to expect. From the time I started until dark, sulfurs and olives hatched in modest numbers, there were more isos than I have seen hatch since early June, but the stars of the show were the big yellow drakes that hatched abundantly from the time I arrived until dark. The fish ate subsurface with nary a yellow drake eaten. Floated all kinds of duns over them without a single take. Switched to emerger patterns and got some smaller fish to eat. It wasn't until almost dark that the fish started looking up. When I thought to look down I saw that there were sulfur spinners on the water. Made the switch and ended up in a flurry of action. A Troutfitter regular walked down to where I was fishing to watch and chat during the feeding frenzy. He witnessed my hooking and landing of the "fish of the day" a nice 20 inch brown that surprised me by eating the spinner with a big splashy rise. I was watching what I thought was my fly floating along unmolested three feet away. Its sometimes better to be lucky than good.